Game Awards 2024 Could Be The Shot in The Arm One GOTY Nominee Needed

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home December 3, 2024 2 Views 7 Min Read
Game Awards 2024 Could Be The Shot in The Arm One GOTY Nominee Needed

The Game of the Year nominees at The Game Awards are almost always the subject of controversy each year, and 2024 has been no different. When Geoff Keighley announced the six candidates for GOTY on November 18, the news generated a lot of discourse within the gaming community. Many gamers were upset over the inclusion of two of The Game Awards nominees: Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree and Balatro. Although both titles were widely well-received by fans and critics alike, some believed that they shouldn’t be eligible for GOTY. Shadow of the Erdtree was, after all, an expansion for an RPG that originally came out in 2022, while Balatro was a card game that lacked mainstream appeal.




However, if there was one GOTY nominee whose inclusion wasn’t criticized, it was Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. The second installment in the planned FF7 Remake trilogy was met with universal acclaim upon its release in February 2024, and it was largely regarded as an improvement over its predecessor. On review aggregator OpenCritic, the game earned a 93/100 Top Critic Average, with an astounding 99% critic approval rating and a 9/10 score from players. Given the heaps of praise it received, it should come as no surprise that Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth was selected as a candidate for Game of the Year. However, it seems like this GOTY nomination has surprisingly benefited the game in more than one way.

Balatro Standard Joker

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Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s GOTY Nomination May Be Benefiting It In Multiple Ways


Several Game Awards Nominees, Including FF7 Rebirth, Have Received Big Boosts in Sales

Earlier this week, GamesIndustry.biz head Christopher Dring revealed in a post on Twitter that several acclaimed games from 2024 received significant boosts in sales across Europe shortly after being nominated at The Game Awards. According to data collected by GSD, Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Astro Bot (which garnered 7 nods at the TGAs) enjoyed a 61% sales increase. The fellow GOTY contenders Elden Ring and Metaphor: ReFantazio, meanwhile, received 38% and 172% spikes in sales, respectively. Even Bloober Team’s Silent Hill 2 remake (which wasn’t nominated for GOTY, but still earned 5 nominations at The Game Awards), had a 43% uptick in sales.

Perhaps the most interesting information here pertains to Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. In Europe, Square Enix’s critically acclaimed FF7 Rebirth had a whopping 268% week-on-week increase in sales. For a game that’s almost a year old, that’s pretty impressive. Although Dring notes that sales boosts like these are to be expected during the holiday seasons, the fact that FF7 Rebirth experienced such a dramatic improvement in sales compared to all the other previously mentioned games suggests that it’s currently doing exceptionally well. If that is the case, then this sales spike is exactly what the hit JRPG needed.


FF7 Rebirth Was a Commercial Disappointment, So This Sales Boost is Just What It Needs

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth may be a critical darling, but it wasn’t exactly a runaway commercial success. The game has notoriously struggled to move the needle for Square Enix from a financial perspective, despite being such a major release for the publisher. Although it topped the sales charts in Japan in the first week after its release, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth had one of the worst launches for a mainline FF game in the country, behind even recent titles like Final Fantasy 16. Square Enix didn’t provide official sales data for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, but it confirmed in May 2024 that it had failed to meet its commercial expectations.

Many industry pundits attributed Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth‘s disappointing commercial performance to, among other things, its PS5 exclusivity. The game only being available on one console likely hindered its sales potential by quite a bit. Despite all that, FF7 Rebirth‘s GOTY nomination at The Game Awards appears to have boosted its sales considerably. While it may not be enough to make up for the loss in revenue from the game not being sold on PC and Xbox at launch, it may give a sizable boost to Square Enix’s profits.


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